Independent research on organized crime family structures and legislative processes

¶ … Charles "Lucky" Luciano and his importance to organized crime. Lucky Luciano was so incredibly significant to organized crime. Time Magazine even included him in their list of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. In fact, the editors of the magazine credit him with "reinventing the Mafia" (Editors, 2003). Ambitious and ruthless, he became the head of the New York Italian Mafia, and revolutionized its organization, power, and control.

Charles Lucky Luciano was born November 24, 1897 in Sicily. His family immigrated to New York when he was only a young boy, and almost immediately, he got into trouble with the law. As a teen, he was arrested for everything from petty larceny to drug transport. He had served time in prison before he even turned 18 (Kelly, 2000, p. 199). During Prohibition, Luciano became involved in bootlegging, and he also associated with crime figures that were not a part of the Italian Mafia, such as Meyer Lansky and "Bugsy" Siegel. The reigning Mafia bosses felt associating with gangsters outside the Mafia was a betrayal of sorts, but Luciano maintained the ties because he felt it was good business and that the "old-world" Mafia bosses might be a bigger problem than associates outside the Mafia were. This would mark the beginning of Luciano's new ideas that would literally recreate the Italian Mafia from the ground up.

Luciano rose to be a boss in the Masseria crime family, and eventually he helped in a plot to assassinate Masseria in favor of a new leader. Because of his involvement, the new family boss, Salvatore Maranzano, made Lucky his number two man when he took over the family. Maranzano helped set up the "family" type hierarchy that endures to this day in La Costra Nostra. However, Maranzano really did not trust Luciano, and arranged for his murder. Luciano found out about the plans and had Maranzano murdered instead. The day after Maranzano's murder, Luciano orchestrated over 40 other murders across the nation, which ultimately gave him total control over the Mafia business. This historian notes, "The result left Lucky Luciano enthroned atop the New York underworld, with no formidable rival in sight, and made him, by the same stroke, the dominant voice in Mafia councils across the nation. He was never to lose this stature, not even through a long imprisonment" (Cook, 1966, p. 99). Luciano made history in many ways, and this was the true beginning of his legend and mastery over the Mafia.

Luciano took over and created a national crime syndicate, including many non-Italian members such as Lansky, Siegel, and others. Their influence helped eliminate much of the rivalry that had plagued the Mafia before this. There were no longer several families vying for control, essentially all families were united under one common goal, to own and operate illegal activities across the nation. There were about two dozen family bosses, but in the end, they all reported to Luciano and his syndicate. This method allowed the Mafia to run more effectively, but also enlarge its sphere of influence from local to national endeavors. This is one way the mob became so enmeshed in Las Vegas and other gambling. Because it was a national syndicate, it had national influence.

Luciano also began the trend of gangsters living "large." Historian Kelly notes, "Lucky led an affluent life as a crime czar. He lived luxuriously in New York's Waldorf Astoria under the name 'Charles Ross' and was a neighbor of such distinguished individuals as General Douglas MacArthur and the former president of the United States, Herbert Hoover" (Kelly, 2000, p. 200). He dressed in the finest of clothes, and had influential friends such as Frank Sinatra. In 1935, federal prosecutors charged Luciano with "compulsory prostitution" and in 1936; he received a 50-year jail sentence. However, he continued to influence the syndicate through prison walls. In addition, he helped the U.S. Navy with his influence with the International Longshoreman's Union during World War II. Another historian notes, "Amid anxiety over lax security on the waterfront, the U.S. Navy perceived the presence of Italian-born dockworkers as a potential threat. Naval intelligence turned to an unlikely patriot, Lucky Luciano, for advice and assistance in securing the waterfront" (Bernstein, 2002, p. 114). The mobster enlisted Sicilian friends and Mafia to help with the U.S. invasion of Sicily during the war, too. Because of this service during the war, his sentence was pardoned by Governor Thomas Dewey, and he was deported to Naples, with the condition he could never return to the United States. Luciano continued to rule the syndicate even from Naples, and in 1947, he held a major meeting in Cuba that essentially set up the mob's influence in the first Las Vegas hotel-casino, the famous Flamingo, which began casino development in Las Vegas.